Page:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies, from the papers of Thomas Jefferson - Volume 1.djvu/403

 387

zens should be discharging their debts, they afterwards permitted British creditors to prosecute their suits, and to receive their debts in seven equal and annual payments ; relying that the demand for the slaves, would either be admitted or denied in time, to lay their hands on some of the latter payments, for reimbursement. The immensity of this debt, was another reason for forbidding such a mass of property to be offered for sale under execution, at once, as, from the small quantity of circulating money, it must have sold for little or nothing, whereby the creditor would have failed to re ceive his money, and the debtor would have lost his whole estate, without being discharged of his debt. This is the history of the delay of justice in that country, in the case of British creditors. As to all others, its administration is as speedy as justice itself will admit. I presume it is equally so in all the other States, and can add, that it is administered in them all, with a purity and integrity, of which few countries afford an example.

I cannot take leave, altogether, of the subjects of this conversa tion, without recalling the attention of the Count de Vergennes, to what had been its principal drift. This was to endeavor to bring about a direct exchange between France and the United States, (without the intervention of a third nation) of those productions, with which each could furnish the other. We can furnish to France, (because we have heretofore furnished to England) of whale oil and spermaceti, of furs and peltry, of ships and naval stores, and of potash, to the amount of fifteen millions of livres ; and the quantities will admit of increase. Of our tobacco, France consumes the value often millions more. Twenty-five millions of livres, then, mark the extent of that commerce of exchange, which is, at present, practicable between us. We want, in return, pro ductions and manufactures, not money. If the duties on our pro duce are light, and the sale free, we shall undoubtedly bring it here, and lay out the proceeds on the spot, in the productions and manufactures which we want. The merchants of France, will, on their part, become active in the same business. We shall no more think, when we shall have sold our produce here, of making an useless voyage to another country, to lay out the money, than we think, at present, when we have sold it elsewhere, of coming here to lay out the money. The conclusion is, that there are commodities which form a basis of exchange, to the extent of a million of guineas annually : it is for the wisdom of those in power, to contrive that the exchange shall be made.

Having put this paper into the hands of Monsieur Reyneval, we entered into conversation again, on the subject of the Farms, which were now understood to be approaching to a conclusion. He told